Macron and Kagame meet to repair strained ties over Rwandan genocide

Youth join pension reform protests

Students joined workers for a new round of nationwide strikes across France on Tuesday in protest at government plans to overhaul the country's pension system and raise the age at which workers can retire with a full pension from 60 to 62.

AFP - French students joined workers in the streets Tuesday as the bitter battle against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to up the retirement age to 62 escalated and strikers threatened to prolong stoppages.

"Sarko, you're screwed, the young are on the streets," chanted students in the southwestern town of Toulouse as they marched beside workers on the fourth major nationwide demonstration against pension reform in just over a month.

The interior ministry said 500,000 demonstrators were marching in towns and cities around the country by midday, even before the main Paris march started in the afternoon, many more than at the same time on the previous protest.

Students and school pupils broadened the movement and their participation -- along with threats by some workers to make their strikes open-ended -- was seen as an escalation of what has become the biggest battle in Sarkozy's presidency.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon ruled out making any new concessions and he slammed as "irresponsible" what he said was a bid by the far left and some opposition Socialists to "put kids of 15 on the streets" to join the protests.

Operations at 11 of France's 12 mainland oil refineries were disrupted and 56 tankers were stuck waiting off the Mediterranean port of Marseille as petrol and dock workers held an open-ended strike.

Travellers faced major delays, with up to half the flights to and from Paris Orly airport and one in three at the capital's international hub Charles de Gaulle-Roissy and the smaller Paris Beauvais cancelled.

Just one in three TGV high-speed trains was running, although Eurostar trains between Paris and London operated normally. Paris commuter and metro trains were also hit as transport workers walked off the job.

Students at around 400 high schools across the country built barricades with plastic wheelie bins and metal barriers or used other methods to try to prevent other pupils attending classes, the education ministry said.

"I'm prepared to prolong the strike. I started working at 17 and now I'm 50 and I'm starting to get really fed up with it," said a demonstrator in the southwestern town of Angouleme, who said he worked for the Lafarge cement firm.

A CSA opinion poll said 69 percent of French people back the strike, with 61 percent in favour of more open-ended industrial action in order to turn the screw on a government that has vowed to push through the change.

If the walls of Paris could talk, they would tell the story of a city simmering with political frustration. Here, in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement (district), is a sticker of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with “Enough!” written on his forehead. (Photos: Rachel Holman)

Nearby on the Boulevard du Temple, one of many pedestrian poles tagged with a sticker calling for "Social justice" and a "General strike".

On the Paris Metro's line 4, which runs from Porte d’Orleans in the south to Porte de Clignancourt in the north, an ad-hoc sign urges "Retirement: No to this unjust reform!"

A billboard at the foot of Montmartre plastered with posters calling for "Strike until victory!", "Retract the law on retirement," and one picturing Sarkozy next to embattled Labour Minister Eric Woerth on a 500-euro bill saying "Out! Because they're worth nothing".

Back in the 3rd arrondissement, an exhibit features pictures of a French retirement home for artists, meant to "force us to confront the image of our society in the face of old age, at a time when the debate over retirement reform seems is focused solely on economics."

A store window on rue Jean Pierre Timbaud in the 11th district displays a picture of Adolf Hitler, saying: "Me too, I began like that with the Roma, before exterminating one million of them in the concentration camps. Make a little effort Nicolas".

In the same window display is another photo depicting Sarkozy as General Philippe Petain, head of France’s Vichy government, which collaborated with Nazi Germany. The words above and below the image read “Son of Petain”.

On Avenue Parmentier, in the 11th arrondissement, a school banner says: “Solidarity school: families of undocumented immigrants must be regularised”. Many are frustrated by France's refusal to grant papers to immigrant parents whose children attend French state school.

Many schools feel they are unfairly excluded from the Priority Education Zones or ZEPs, whereby educational institutes are eligible for extra resources. On rue Christiani, in the 18th arrondissement, a school banner demands “ZEP! Why not us?”

The government is hoping the demonstrations will fizzle out after Tuesday's marches and strikes, but it is also worried that the anti-reform movement will become more radical and trigger riots alongside the so-far peaceful marches.

Meanwhile, the reform bill is edging closer to becoming law.

Late on Monday, French senators passed a key measure, raising the age for a full state pension from 65 to 67. Both houses of parliament have already approved hiking the retirement age from 60 to 62.

That is the most hotly contested measure in the package Sarkozy says could save 70 billion euros (90 billion dollars) by 2030 at a time when France's public deficit -- at around eight percent of GDP -- is well above the eurozone target of three percent.

Pensions are a key plank in Sarkozy's reform agenda as he eyes reelection in 2012.

The president, whose poll ratings are at their lowest since he came to power in 2007, last week offered minor amendments to the bill but insists it will go through largely unchanged.

The Senate's deliberations are to last until Friday and the government hopes for the reform to be approved by the end of the month.

French men and women can under current rules retire at 60, but they only get a full pension if they have paid social security contributions for a given period, which for most people now in work is 40.5 years.

Under the new law, the number of years of payroll social security payments needed to get a full pension is due to increase in stages to 41.5 years, and the minimum retirement age is to go up to 62.

Unions and opposition politicians say the plan puts an unfair burden on workers, particularly women, part-timers and the former unemployed who might struggle to hit the 41.5 year requirement.